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brownie

 - 8 dictionary results

brown⋅ie

[brou-nee]
–noun
1. a tiny, fanciful, good-natured brown elf who secretly helps at night with household chores.
2. a small, chewy, cakelike cookie, usually made with chocolate and containing nuts.
3. Australian. a bread with currants, baked in a camp oven.
4. (sometimes initial capital letter) a member of the junior division of the Girl Scouts or the Girl Guides, being a girl in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade and usually between 6 and 8 years old.

Origin:
1505–15; brown + -ie; in folkloric sense, orig. Scots


1. See fairy.

Brown

[broun]
–noun
1. Charles Brock⋅den [brok-duhn] , 1771–1810, U.S. novelist.
2. Clifford (“Brownie”), 1930–56, U.S. jazz trumpeter.
3. Edmund Gerald, Jr. (Jerry), born 1938, U.S. politician: governor of California 1975–83.
4. Herbert Charles, 1912–2004, U.S. chemist, born in England: Nobel prize 1979.
5. James Nathaniel (Jimmy), born 1936, U.S. football player and actor.
6. John (“Old Brown of Osawatomie”), 1800–59, U.S. abolitionist: leader of the attack at Harpers Ferry, where he was captured, tried for treason, and hanged.
7. Margaret Wise, 1910–52, U.S. author noted for early-childhood books.
8. Olympia, 1835–1926, U.S. women's-rights activist and Universalist minister: first American woman ordained by a major church.
9. Robert, 1773–1858, Scottish botanist.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To brownie
brown·ie   (brou'nē)   
n.  
  1. Brownie A member of the Girl Scouts from six through eight years of age.

  2. A bar of moist, usually chocolate cake, often with nuts.

  3. A small sprite thought to do helpful work at night.

  4. A brown trout.


[Sense 3, from the notion of the sprite as a tiny brown man.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
brown-nose

  1. n.
    and brownie; brown-noser. a sycophant; one who flatters for self-serving motives. : You are just a plain old brown-nose. , Will some brown-noser please try to get the teacher to put off the test?
  2. tv. & in.
    to curry favor with someone; to be a sycophant. : Don keeps brown-nosing, and the professor pretends not to notice.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

brown 
O.E. brun "dark," only developing a definite color sense 13c., from P.Gmc. *brunaz, from PIE *bher- "shining, brown" (cf. Lith. beras "brown"), related to *bheros "dark animal" (cf. beaver, bear, and Gk. phrynos "toad," lit. "the brown animal"). The O.E. word also had a sense of "brightness, shining," now preserved only in burnish. The Gmc. word was adopted into Romantic (cf. M.L. brunus, It., Sp. bruno, Fr. brun). Colloquial brown-nose (1939) is "from the implication that servility is tantamount to having one's nose in the anus of the person from whom advancement is sought" [Webster, 1961]. Brown Bess, slang name for old British Army flintlock musket, first recorded 1785.

brownie 
"benevolent goblin supposed to haunt old farmhouses in Scotland," 1513, dim. of brown "a wee brown man" (see brown). The name for the junior branch of the Girl Guides or Girl Scouts is 1916, in ref. to uniform color. Brownie point (1963) is sometimes associated with Brownie in the Scouting sense, but is probably from brown-nose (see brown).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Brown (broun), Michael. Born 1941.

American geneticist. He shared a 1985 Nobel Prize for discoveries related to cholesterol metabolism.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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Encyclopedia

brownie

in English and Scottish folklore, a small, industrious fairy or hobgoblin believed to inhabit houses and barns. Rarely seen, he was often heard at night, cleaning and doing housework; he also sometimes mischievously disarranged rooms. He would ride for the midwife, and in Cornwall he caused swarming bees to settle quickly. Cream or bread and milk might be left for him, but other gifts offended him. If one made him a suit of clothes, he would put it on and then vanish, never to return

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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